SaaS SEO Checklist – A Practical List To Decrease CAC

Unless it is a complicated gig like a SaaS model (with multiple touch points to success)   the formula you need to follow for better results from Organic Search would be:

Get links > Choose keywords with keyword difficulty matching your domain link power > Write good content.

SEO tools can automate most of the tasks involved in this formula.

But with SaaS, it’s a different story.

Unlike regular business, a typical SaaS business has KPIs like 

1. Decreasing CAC – Customer Acquisition Costs
   1. This involves – Increased Monthly unique visitors
   2. Converting more visitors to customers
2. Improved customer lifetime value
   1. This involves – increase customer retention,
3. Improve Overall Revenue
   1. This involves – all the above points and 
   2. Upselling or using different pricing models to increase average revenue per customer account.

Success for most SaaS companies starts with figuring out organic goals and objectives for the given time period (the success of most SaaS companies is time-sensitive, you need to show results by the next quarter or by the next VC meeting)

And results are usually not the same for all SaaS companies.

And the meaning of results is way different from a regular SEO project.

Regular SEO metrics like increased traffic, increased DR, better initial index position, and increased number of keywords in the top 3 are all VANITY metrics from a SaaS business model perspective

For most SaaS businesses it is just pure leads, some want sales.

And some with deep pockets and superior products want awareness.

In my opinion, once the SaaS company has its organic search GOALS and OBJECTIVES set, the biggest task of any SEO consultant working for them would be figuring out 

1. Building proper Use Cases around those goals and objectives so that they can decide on landing pages. (This might seem all ridiculous but I see many SaaS companies go with a very narrow approach and miss out on easy wins)
2. Figuring out ZeroVolume keywords purely by understanding use cases and the SaaS product or service features.
3. Search-based positioning – Not all users have the same reason to subscribe to a SaaS service or product. Knowing the most popular reasons could help SaaS companies take advantage of highly successful competitors in the niche.
4. Analysis of organic search GAPS – When it is SaaS, more than often, businesses tend to leave gaps in their content strategies. Analyzing those strategies can give us additional opportunities that are easy                                                                  

So for any SaaS company this is the most probable SaaS SEO checklist to consider

• SEO Goals & Objectives
• Brand positioning
  • Tag Line
  • Slogan
• Content Plan
  • Existing Content Performance Analysis
    • Search Appreciation Affinity Chart
  • Cluster Planning
  • Content-Type
  • Funnel Planning
  • Topic Research 
  • Tool Integrations
  • Leverage milage of other popular products
  • Feature-based use cases and benefits
  • Case Studies
  • Blog with passion too (Engineering, Funding news, Features news, milestones, achievements, company culture, employee satisfaction stories)
• Backlinks
  • Analysing the existing link profile
  • Link Acquisition strategies
  • Getting links naturally
  • Anchors For Backlinks
• Technical SEO
  • Site Architecture
    • URL Structure
  • Schema Markup
  • Javascript Issues
  • Mobile-Friendly Analysis
  • Internal links
  • Removing problem pages
  • Checking Loading speed
  • CVW -friendly
• Getting SEO Basics Right on a Daily Basis
  • Getting keywords right
  • Meta Titles and Descriptions
  • Images, Alt Tags, Descriptions
• Give the external push
  • Branding
  • Build Awareness in the relevant communities
  • Social Media 
  • Ebooks
  • White Papers
  • Help the community
• UX – Analysis
  • Brand tone
  • User Satisfaction when browsing
  • Readability
  • Scanability